I've studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an emphasis in box office analysis, for 28 years. I have extensively written about all of said subjects for the last ten years. My outlets for film criticism, box office commentary, and film-skewing scholarship have included The Huffington Post, Salon, and Film Threat. Follow me at @ScottMendelson and "like" The Ticket Booth on Facebook.

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Why Marvel Shouldn't Fear A Flop

With $222 million domestic and $419m worldwide after eighteen days in theatrical release, it’s pretty clear that Marvel and Walt Disney’sGuardians of the Galaxy is a pretty big hit. Moreover, it’s the kind of buzzy, crowd-pleasing would-be tent pole that’s actually generating proverbial good vibrations after a summer when (fair or not) the likes of Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Transformers: Age of Extinction left viewers indifferent. As Disney officially announced the start of production of Ant Manyesterday, we also saw a Variety piece by Brian Lowry late last week stating that the success of Guardians of the Galaxy increased the danger of Marvel eventually going too far into the obscure or commercially risky and netting a genuine flop. I don’t entirely disagree with him, but I also don’t necessarily think it’s a danger. Marvel will eventually have a flop, it’s just a question of when and how. As such, they are better off embracing the inevitability rather than hedging their bets.

It could be argued that Marvel already had something of a flop, as their second feature, The Incredible Hulk, earned just $263m worldwide on a $150m budget in June of 2008. Comparatively, After Earth was held up as a massive disaster last year for earning $243m on a $130m budget. If we are to consider The Incredible Hulk a box office miss, then I would argue that the lesson from that reboot explicitly argues against “playing it safe.” The film was a victim of behind-the-scenes battles between director Louis Leterrier and star Edward Norton against executives at Marvel who didn’t want anything like Ang Lee’s character-centric and introspective Hulk. As a result, crucial character scenes were lost and the action-packed but painfully dumbed-down film remains the low point on the Marvel Universe, both financially and (arguably) artistically.

It should be telling that Marvel’s one relative box office failure is their clearest example of being risk averse and/or playing it safe. I bring up this old history to say that if Marvel is going to eventually whiff, they might as well do it when swinging for the fences. The robust success of Guardians of the Galaxy means that Marvel can be just as successful selling an outer-space adventure based on little-known cult characters without any real movie stars on the poster. As I’ve said a few times over the last few months, Marvel Studios and their reputation is the strongest marketing component of a Marvel Studios film, akin to a live-action Pixar. As such, it should again be noted that the closest thing Pixar has had to a genuine flop was Cars 2.

The unofficial remake of If Looks Could Kill (Why doesn’t Roger Rees work more often?) ”flopped” in 2011 all the way to $191 million domestic (their second-lowest grosser in America, behind A Bug’s Life) and $559m worldwide (7th out of 14 features thus far). Much of the judgment towards Pixar was in light of what appeared to be a merchandise-minded cash-in sequel to their least acclaimed property. Had an out-and-out original and/or critical darling earned similar numbers, I would imagine the media would have been a lot kinder to the financial result. Conversely, if Ant Man in any way “under-performs” next July (under $400m worldwide?), it will surely be viewed in a harsher light under the direction of replacement director Peyton Reed than it would have been under the helm of original director Edgar Wright.

Maybe Ant Man will be their first miss since The Incredible Hulk or maybe it will be something else down the line. But the success of Guardians of the Galaxy should embolden Marvel to go farther out into the cosmos and further into their archives or expand the kinds of people who can lead a superhero film, not worry about whether they can convince Robert Downey Jr. to do Iron Man 4. Marvel will eventually hit a snag in the road, be it an actual flop or a “pretend” flop like Cars 2. Armed with the understanding that Marvel can sustain a body-blow and keep trucking (partially thanks to Disney) and the idea that even a failed theatrical release will eventually become mandatory viewing in the overall Marvel universe, it is in Marvel’s best interest to dive into the abyss of whatever cult properties or cosmic weirdness they so choose. It is in their best interest to deliver on vague promises of a female-centric or minority-centric superhero film sooner rather than later.

If Marvel is to eventually fall on its face, would it rather do so while rolling the dice on Black Panther, Ms. Marvel, or an uber-cosmic space adventureor merely striking out with a run-of-the-mill Earthbound white male-centric superhero film like Ant Man? Heck, from a mercenary point-of-view, better to strike out with something “different” so as to provide them something of an alibi. Cold as this may sound, it will be easier to “explain” a financial disappointment stemming from a Black Panther movie set in the African nation of Wakanda than have to explain the (however unlikely) failure of a safe project like Thor 3 or Iron Man 4. At least then Marvel will get credit for “going for it” and spending their hard-won capitol.

Marvel Studios is in as enviable a place as any production studio could imagine in this day-and-age. They have built a cinematic universe from the ground-up and (for better or worse) changed how Hollywood makes big-budget franchise films. They have earned the right to fail and fail badly, so they might as well use the freedom of survivable failure to roll the dice however they choose. Yes, Guardians of the Galaxy enhances the risk that Marvel will be embolden to travel to a bridge too far in one variable or another and eventually fail spectacularly. But better to see them embrace that freedom rather than play it safe. As Incredible Hulk showed right from the start and Ant Man may show again next year, playing it safe has actually been the least successful play in the Marvel playbook.

If you like what you’re reading, follow @ScottMendelson on Twitter, and “like” The Ticket Booth on Facebook. Also, check out my archives for older work HERE.

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Nice article, Scott — much better than Lowry’s bland piece in Variety! The comparison between Incredible Hulk and After Earth really highlights how many factors play into a film’s percieved success or failure. Hulk did most of its business in America, and took in $55k for its opening weekend, while After Earth only managed $60 during its entire domestic run. It also had the PR benefit of opening while Iron Man was still in theatres.

If Incredible Hulk had been Marvel Studios’ first movie out of the gate, it would have been subject to a lot more scrutiny. Instead, it was sheilded by the success of Iron Man. Similarly, if Hulk had come out a year or so later and been viewed as Marvel’s ‘follow-up’ to Iron Man’s success, it might have been regarded as more of a failure.

Marvel in general has been very good at managing public expectations — almost all their films have been good press because they’ve been percieved as underdogs in some way or another — Iron Man was a ‘b-list- super hero’, Avengers was ‘risky’, Guardians was ‘absurd’. Even the post-Avengers sequels, which were as safe of box office bets as you could hope for, got kudos for succeeding without the other Avengers around.

Now, most Marvel fans have low expectations for Ant-Man, so if that film bombs there will be all sorts of built-in excuses (Edgar Wright, Payton Reed, ‘playing it safe’, the character himself, et al, et al), but if it succeeds, the narrative will be ‘In the face of all odds, Marvel does it again!’

As you rightly point out, Marvel has little to lose at this stage by taking risks with their films. I hope they come out swinging with more risky films!

The risk for them is not Ant-Man (or Black Panther, or Captian Marvel or whatever else) bombing, but of Avengers 2 performing like Iron Man 2. However, even if Avengers 2 underwhelmes, Marvel now has another successful super-team to pick up the slack: Guardians of the Galaxy. Viewed in that light, James Gunn’s film seems less about courting risk than mitigating it.

Don’t deceive yourself…It is huge but nothing trumps Batman v Superman. You can talk about Marvel all day but it comes down to these guy and I’ll even add WW. Yes, it’s huge but it DOESN”T TRUMP Batman v Superman.